PB&J Cupcakes

This recipe is adapted from a recipe by Martha Stewart. It yields about 24 cupcakes.

What You'll Need:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter

3 eggs, room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature

3/4 cup coarsely chopped salted, roasted peanuts

Peanut Butter Frosting (recipe found here)

1/2 cup strawberry jelly or jam

How to Make It:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line standard-size muffin tins with paper liners*. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Mix in peanut butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture, a little at a time, beating after just combined. Do not overbeat the mixture- just beat it until everything is incorporated. Beat in the sour cream, then fold in the peanuts with a spatula. Divide the batter among the muffin cups (it will be pretty thick and fluffy, almost like cookie dough), filling them about 3/4 full. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking time, for about 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in one of the cupcakes comes out clean.

To finish, frost the cupcakes with the peanut butter frosting. Leave a little well in the middle of the frosting (an indentation about the size of your thumbprint. Drop about one teaspoon of jam into each well. Store these cupcakes in the refrigerator, but they are best brought to room temperature before serving.

*I recommend using white cupcake liners or foil liners for this recipe. Peanut butter has an oily/greasy quality about it, and when I used bright pink and purple liners, the peanut butter oil caused the liners to stain my dark, nonstick pans slightly. So go with foil or white liners on this one.